- The Iskarn demo is out ! - 9 September 2026
Hey everyone ! It's live: the Iskarn demo is free on this page right now. Go build something. What's in it - 5 nights to found your colony and hold the line against whatever crawls out of the dark - The real game, not a slice: build block by block, craft in your workshops, explore the ruins, take control of your hero, keep the menhir burning - English, French, German, Polish and Russian Your colony carries over When dawn breaks after your fifth night, the demo ends but your save doesn't. In the full game, your colony picks up exactly where you left it: same walls, same people, same scars. See you at Steam Next Fest Iskarn is registered for Steam Next Fest, October 19 to 26. Everything you tell me between now and then shapes what thousands of players will find there. This is my first game and I'm making it alone, so seeing you play it means a lot. Tell me honestly what you liked and what…
- Devlog #10 - 16 July 2026
Devlog #10 Borrowed Daylight Hey everyone! Two things today. Playtest signups are open, and since you are about to step into this world, it is time I told you what is going on in it. The playtest is open The build is live and it is the real game: the full prologue, colony management, night sieges, exploration, and possession, where you drop into your hero's body and fight it out yourself instead of watching from above. Signups are open right now, and they go through the Discord: join us, ask for access, and I will get you in. Sign up here: https://discord.gg/MEBzGzRz5Q What I need back is simple: bugs, moments where you got lost, anything that felt bad. There is a short questionnaire if you want to be thorough, but a message saying "I had no idea what to do here" is worth more than you think. The night is winning Here is the thing you learn in your first week in Iskarn: every night is a…
- Devlog #9 - 21 June 2026
Devlog #9 Raise the Stone Hey @everyone! Big week. Territory was reborn around a single object, hunger learned to bite back, and stepping into your hero just got a whole lot more obvious. Raise the Stone Claiming land is now a real gesture. You place a menhir, a runic standing stone, and watch it surge up out of the ground to anchor your territory. The claimed zone then grows outward in stages, like ground being won rather than painted onto a map. The old manual territory tool is gone, and honestly this feels cleaner and a lot more satisfying. And the stone keeps watch: when a hostile crosses into your land, an intrusion bell rings. A light heads-up, so a wandering zombie never catches you completely off guard. Starvation Bites Hunger used to be a quiet timer. Not anymore. When a colonist hits empty there's a short grace period, then their health starts draining and the HP bar visibly r…
- Devlog #8 - 14 June 2026
Devlog #8 Plant or Perish Hey @everyone! This one is all about food: Iskarn now has real farming, and the seasons actually decide whether your colony eats. From dirt to dinner Mark out a field like you would a stockpile, pick one of four crops, and your Farmers take it from there: they till each tile by hand to turn raw ground into workable soil, sow the seeds, tend the crop, and bring in the harvest. Every plant climbs through four visible growth stages: - Sown soil: freshly planted, nothing showing yet - Sprouts: the first green shoots break through - Growing: taller and leafier, the row fills out - Ripe: a full, heavy plant ready to reap Timing matters: harvest early and you get a meager pull, wait for ripe and you get the full yield. No more living off whatever wild plants you can scavenge. The seasons decide The calendar sets the pace, and each season hits growth differently: - Spr…
- Devlog #7 - 7 June 2026
Devlog #7 Into the Ruins Hey @everyone ! This week was all about one thing: giving you reasons to leave the safety of your village and head out into the unknown. Iskarn now has a living world, full of places to explore, loot, and people to save. A world worth exploring The wilds around your colony are now scattered with abandoned places: hunter's camps, burned inns, ruined mills, flooded mines, fallen citadels and plenty more. They appear naturally as you push outward, and the further you travel from home, the more dangerous (and rewarding) they get. 30 unique sites, tiers 1 to 10 We hand-built 30 distinct locations spread across 10 danger tiers. A tier 1 site might be a humble camp a short walk from your gates. A tier 10 site is a sunken cathedral or a fallen citadel, crawling with the kind of things you really don't want to meet unprepared. Distance is the difficulty dial: the map its…
- Devlog #6 - 31 May 2026
Devlog #6 You are the Hero ! Hey everyone ! Last week I teased a major feature I was rethinking from the ground up. It's here, and honestly, it changes how Iskarn feels to play. The goal with all of this : give the player real impact, pull you into the world, deepen the immersion. Stop being a god moving pieces on a board, become one of the people fighting to keep the colony alive. Be the Hero You're not just the architect floating above the colony anymore. You have a Hero, the main character of your clan, and you can step into him whenever you want. One key, and the camera locks in behind him. You move him, aim with the mouse, swing. Step out, and he goes back to living his life among the others, chopping wood, building, sleeping. He's not a side hero. He's the central figure of your clan. Down the line, the Hero is what's going to let you lead squads, take a handful of citizens with y…
- Devlog #5 - 10 May 2026
Devlog #5 The Weight of Steel Hey everyone! Last week brought horde leaders and gate assaults. This week was all about polish: making every single sword swing actually feel like it lands. Hit feel Every connecting blow now has layered punch: - A bright white flash on impact, then the red damage flash settles in - Heavy hits trigger a short camera shake, only for fights happening near you so distant skirmishes don't shake your view - Blood bursts double in intensity on heavy hits - Sword strikes leave a curved arc trail at the strike point that fades quickly The result: a goblin getting tickled and a Revenant landing a crusher now look completely different at a glance. Boss readability Horde leaders now wear a 3D blood-red crown floating above their head, slowly rotating. The old flat ring at their feet was hard to spot from a top-down angle. The crown stands out instantly across a battl…
- Devlog #4 - 3 May 2026
Hey everyone ! Combat just got a massive overhaul. Last few weeks turned night assaults from a chore into something tense. Per-citizen stances No more global combat mode. Each citizen has their own stance, set from a new Selection Action Bar : - Peace : civilian, only fights back if cornered. - Defensive : holds position, engages within weapon range. - Aggressive : pursues threats, then comes home after the kill. Mix stances inside a single squad. Spearmen on defense, archers aggressive behind them, civilians fleeing past. Coordinated hordes Waves used to be identical zombies in a bag. Now : - Leaders rally the pack, buff allies' damage and lock everyone onto the same target. Solo zombies caught in the aura get permanently recruited. - Tier progression : new zombie types unlock as waves escalate. Wave 1 is Ghouls. Wave 10 brings the gold-runed Revenant. - Door assault : hordes route thr…
- Devlog #3 - 26 April 2026
Hey everyone! This one is big, nights just got teeth. The zombies got a full top-to-bottom rework: how they appear, how they move, how they sound, how they die at dawn. Five faces of the dead Iskarn now has five distinct undead tiers in rotation. A baseline brute, a fragile runner, a bloated tank, a plague-carrier trailing toxic spores, and a rune-marked elite that shows up rarely enough that seeing one actually means something. Each has its own silhouette, tempo, and voice, you'll recognize them by ear before you see them. (Previously only three ever spawned, a quiet bug hiding the two most dangerous tiers since forever. They're all back in play now.) Night falls, dead rise When night begins, zombies emerge from the ground across the world you've explored. Hands clawing up out of a dust-and-ember mist, low rumble, the works. The more of the map you've seen, the more threats scattered a…
- Devlog #2 - 19 April 2026
Hey @everyone ! Spent the last weeks going deep on the construction system, more shapes, more materials, and smarter rendering. Here's what changed. The catalog now sits at 32 buildable blocks Before : 21. Now : 32. That's 11 brand new building blocks, covering the shapes that were missing for proper medieval architecture : half-blocks, pillars, and a new signature material. Timber framing joined the roster The iconic half-timbered Fachwerk look now has its own block, cream plaster with a dark wooden frame and a central stud. Perfect for Alsatian-style villages. Also available as a half-block variant and a pillar variant. Shape variants, not just material swaps Two brand-new shape categories : - Half-blocks (half-height slabs) for plinths, cornices, low walls, available in 5 materials (wood, plank, timber frame, stone, white stone) - Pillars (slim vertical columns) for corner posts, doo…
- Devlog #1 - 16 April 2026
Hey @everyone ! This is my very first devlog for Iskarn. The game has been in development for a while now and is already quite feature-rich, but I've been quietly working on it without sharing much. Time to change that ! Here's what the last two weeks looked like. Performance overhaul, +150% FPS I spent a good chunk of time digging into performance bottlenecks. After a lot of profiling and reworking some core rendering logic, the game now runs at over 2.5× the framerate it used to (120 to 300+ fps for me). Bigger colonies, smoother gameplay. Pathfinding rewrite The pathfinding system got a major rework as well, it's now significantly faster and more reliable. Citizens navigate complex terrain without the hiccups they used to have. Vertical path control This one I'm really happy about. You can now precisely control which elevation level your citizens will path on : - Ctrl + Scroll Wheel…
- Iskarn - Roadmap 2026: Beta, Next Fest & Early Access - 14 April 2026
Thank you to everyone who has already wishlisted Iskarn! Here's what to expect in 2026.What's already in the game Iskarn is already a rich game with many mechanics in place:Free-form voxel building with over 15 block types20+ furniture and decorations to place7 professions with XP progression52 crafting recipes across 8 different workshopsFull combat system: weapons and armor from copper to steelEnemies: zombies and nightly hordesAnimal husbandry (sheep, cows, donkeys)4 playable biomes with dynamic weatherDay/night cycle and 4 seasonsFog of war and territory system6 languages supportedWhat I'm currently working onGame stabilization and polishSeasonal farming systemFull PVP systemTemperature system and winter survivalExtended military formationsPOIs to explore (ruins, camps)Rescue and recruitment of new citizensImproved nightly raidsNew building blocksKey datesMay 2026 - Closed BetaFirst…
